Both political parties are hiding the facts about Australia's doomed car assembly industry, says the car review website dogandlemon.com.
Dogandlemon.com editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says:
“Every year, the government hands over a huge bag of money to the car companies. Yet every year, the Australian car industry takes the money, sells fewer cars and fires more workers. Surely everyone can see how this sad story is going to end.
“It’s time for the politicians to come clean: are they going to make more worthless promises, or are they going to start telling the truth?
“Everyone in Canberra knows that local car assembly industry is doomed, but no one is talking about it publicly.
“Make no mistake: the car companies are leaning heavily on the political parties, both publicly, and in private. Ford’s announcement that it was closing down its Australian factories was deliberately timed to do the maximum damage to the Labour government. That’s because Labor declined Ford’s latest attempt at taxpayer extortion.
“You may rest assured that, behind the scenes, Toyota and Holden are twisting arms by the dozen, desperately attempt to maintain the magical flow of taxpayer dollars.”
Matthew-Wilson adds:
“It sounds harsh, I know, but the fact is that those who are still saying there’s a future for the local assembly industry are generally either fools, politicians or car company executives.
“Australia’s car factories are losing money on every vehicle they make. No amount of bailouts from the State and Federal governments can solve this basic problem. It’s not a matter of whether the few remaining factories will close down, but when.”
“To survive as a car-building nation in the 21st century, you need either a huge local market, a huge export market or very low costs. Australia has none of these.”
“The Australian government can throw $6 billion or $600 billion at these car plants, but they still won’t be economically feasible. The Australian car industry can re-focus on small cars, green cars, blue cars or red cars. None of this will make the slightest difference.”
Matthew-Wilson believes the government subsidies should be paid directly to the redundant car workers, rather than the companies that employed them.
“The car companies will still be in business after the handouts stop, but the assembly workers will be hit brutally hard. The government should spend the taxpayers' money helping redundant car assembly workers pay off their mortgages or perhaps start small businesses. At least that way the money wouldn't be wasted. As things stand, the taxpayers' billions are simply paying the bills for a couple of multinational corporations, while doing nothing to solve the underlying problems.
“It’s pretty obvious that the two remaining Australian car manufacturers are planning to milk the Australian taxpayer for every last cent, and then close down anyway. I’m wondering how much longer the Australian taxpayer is going to put up with this.”
